The 12 Days of Citrix

Since late November, my house has been filled with the sounds of Brenda Lee, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, and yes, even Mariah Carey. I’ll admit it: I’m an unabashed lover of Christmas music. From Christmas Wrapping to The Carol of the Bells to Silver Bells, I’m a total sap for everything holly and jolly and yule.

Against this backdrop of seasonal ear candy, I began thinking about how incredible 2016 has been for Citrix. And I giggled — out loud, not just to myself — as I thought, to the tune of a holiday classic, “What were the 12 Days of Citrix?”And yes, I recognize that this line of thinking isn’t altogether “normal,” but I wear my geek badge proudly and I decided to run with it.

And so, without further ado, I present to you my 2016 “carol” of Digital Business Transformation.

The 12 “Days” of Citrix

On the first day of Citrix, our Executive Board gave to we … a brand-spanking-new CEO! What a way to kick off the year! In January, Executive Chairman Bob Calderoni announced that longtime tech industry stalwart Kirill Tatarinov would join Citrix as its CEO. Kirill brought with him a wealth of experience working with some of the biggest companies in tech, but he also brought an “X factor”: a level of enthusiasm, energy, and vision that let us know right away that Citrix was going to be transformed, energized, and made completely new (and we’ve not been disappointed in that regard).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMSO_1Kgs2F/

On the second day of Citrix our Partners gave to meeeeeee … a Summit not to be beat! That’s right: #CitrixPartnerLove was (and is!) alive and well in Las Vegas in January 2016, where we saw the releases of groundbreaking new versions of Citrix core products — XenApp & XenDesktop, NetScaler, XenMobile — as well as the launch of the HDX RealTime Optimization Pack for Microsoft Skype® for Business—just the first of many big announcements this year with Microsoft. “It’s great to be here with a partnership that’s had decades of breadth and depth, unlike any I’ve ever worked on at Microsoft. This is unique,” — Brad Anderson, Microsoft.

As an aside, aren’t you glad we’re not dealing with partridges, turtle doves, and colly (and no, it’s not “calling”) birds? Seriously. What’s up with all those birds?

On the third day of Citrix, twas a special day for we. In February, we gave a nod to our founder and long-time CEO, Mark Templeton, as the conference center at our headquarters was rededicated in his name. Thanks, Mark, for the vests and the paisley and for everything!

https://twitter.com/citrix/status/694249917548728321

On the fourth day of Citrix, Citrites gave to we and me and everybod-eeeee … a workplace that embraces diversity and welcomes ALL. Citrix — one of the biggest reasons I’m proud to work here — is a company that stands up for the rights of everyone. This was heard loud and clear when, in the face of discriminatory laws in North Carolina, our CEO — and all of us — stood up to say “WE ARE NOT THIS.”

On the fifth day of Citrix, we reported to thee … FIVE STRAIGHT QUARTERS OF GROWTH! In the words of Good Will Hunting, “How ‘bout them apples, huh?” Citrix is going great guns and, bolstered by our innovation and the strength of our products, has reported five straight quarters of positive earnings. We are so proud of all we’re achieving and that pride has been continually reinforced by the market’s response to all Citrix is doing.

On the sixth day of Citrix, my CEO gave to me … a new vision and strategy. When Kirill started with Citrix in January, it was clear that Citrix would be different under his leadership. And that has proven 100% true. In March, we released our new Strategy Brief, which outlines Citrix mission to power a world where people, organizations, and things are securely connected and accessible, so that you can make the extraordinary possible.

On the seventh day of Citrix, our developers gave to me (and, who am I kidding, to all of us!) … INNOVATION. Our pace of innovation in 2016 was mind-blowing. There were not one, not two, but three big new releases to XenApp & XenDesktop, big additions—NetScaler MAS, CPX, SD-WAN and more—to our NetScaler Family, great new strides for our Enterprise Mobility solution, XenMobile, and most recently, the release of the all-new ShareFile! And we’re not close to done yet (stay tuned…)

On the eighth day of Citrix, our company gave to ye, a groundbreaking Synergy! Synergy is always Citrix biggest event of the year. But Synergy 2016 was the biggest, best, and most successful ever. We launched Citrix Cloud—the delivery fabric to say YES. We released powerful new versions of our products. And we unveiled our new initiatives with Microsoft that will enable our customers to move to the cloud.

On the tenth day of Citrix, our hard work gave to thee … a strengthened partnership with Microsoft and the announcement of XenApp “Express” — the fastest, easiest way to use XenApp in the cloud. This new service represents the next-generation application virtualization and delivery service for Microsoft Azure.

On the eleventh day of Citrix, our smart teams gave to thee … THE CLOUD. Citrix believes that cloud is the future. Fast, simple, and flexible, cloud reduced infrastructure, centralized control and SaaS-style updates. In short, cloud will make things easier. Product updates are delivered quickly and easily, it makes things easy to deploy, and it helps even smaller businesses scale and grow in ways they wouldn’t in a traditional, on-prem setup. “I can deliver a desktop quickly and efficiently with Citrix Cloud. I don’t have to buy hardware. I don’t have to buy computers. All end users need is a mobile device, and they can get a full desktop experience using the Citrix cloud,” Craig Patterson, Acting IT Director, Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority

On the twelfth (yay! the twelfth!) day of Citrix, some big news came to we … the Human Rights Council recognized Citrix as a Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality. For all we do to raise people’s technology games and for all the digital business transformation we help people achieve, it’s recognition like this that means the most. Recognition like this echoes our values and the way we all live the #CitrixLife, and recognition like this means a great deal to every Citrite.

It’s been a big year for Citrix (my feeble attempts at “lyrics” aside) and I can tell you that 2016 is just the start. It was the beginning of the “new Citrix” and we have lots in store in 2017 and beyond. So, let’s raise a glass to the year that’s been and look toward the promise of the one to come. Happy holidays, everyone!

Share

Tagged under:

Melissa is Citrix Corporate Blog Manager. Our resident red pen-wielder, she is a knower of things, an unrepentant lover of pie, a devil-may-care contrarian, slayer of typos, one-space-after-a-period-and-unabashed-Oxford comma-user, and defender of the rights of semi-colons and apostrophes everywhere.